NetBeans Architecture Answers for Utilities module

General Information

Question (arch-what): What is this project good for?
Answer: JRE concept wrappersm, improved UI building classes and Usefull methods that are harder to write correctly in separate modules are provided in this UtilitiesAPI API.
Question (arch-overall): Describe the overall architecture.
WARNING: Question with id="arch-overall" has not been answered!
Question (arch-usecases): Describe the main use cases of the new API. Who will use it under what circumstances? What kind of code would typically need to be written to use the module?
WARNING: Question with id="arch-usecases" has not been answered!
Question (arch-time): What are the time estimates of the work?
WARNING: Question with id="arch-time" has not been answered!
Question (arch-quality): How will the quality of your code be tested and how are future regressions going to be prevented?
WARNING: Question with id="arch-quality" has not been answered!

Project and platform dependencies

Question (dep-nb): What other NetBeans projects and modules does this one depend on?
Answer:
• LookupAPI
• FilesystemsAPI
• LoadersAPI
• NodesAPI
Question (dep-non-nb): What other projects outside NetBeans does this one depend on?
Answer: Reexports XML APIs so needs some XML parser implementation.
Question (dep-platform): On which platforms does your module run? Does it run in the same way on each?
Answer: Platform independent.
Question (dep-jre): Which version of JRE do you need (1.2, 1.3, 1.4, etc.)?
Answer: JRE 1.3. Some code behaves differently on JDK1.4 as the 1.3 implementation is in place to overcome some JRE bug or API limitation.
Question (dep-jrejdk): Do you require the JDK or is the JRE enough?
Answer: JRE is enough.

Deployment

Question (deploy-jar): Do you deploy just module JAR file(s) or other files as well?
Answer: Utilities are part of openide.jar.
Question (deploy-nbm): Can you deploy an NBM via the Update Center?
Answer: Yes (openide.nbm).
Question (deploy-shared): Do you need to be installed in the shared location only, or in the user directory only, or can your module be installed anywhere?
Answer: As part of openide.jar needs to be in the system directory.
Question (deploy-packages): Are packages of your module made inaccessible by not declaring them public?
Answer: No.
Question (deploy-dependencies): What do other modules need to do to declare a dependency on this one?
WARNING: Question with id="deploy-dependencies" has not been answered!

Compatibility with environment

Question (compat-i18n): Is your module correctly internationalized?
Answer: Yes.
Question (compat-standards): Does the module implement or define any standards? Is the implementation exact or does it deviate somehow?
Answer: Yes. NbBundle reimplements the ResourceBundle lookup to take branding into the consideration.
Question (compat-version): Can your module coexist with earlier and future versions of itself? Can you correctly read all old settings? Will future versions be able to read your current settings? Can you read or politely ignore settings stored by a future version?
Answer: Yes.

Access to resources

Question (resources-file): Does your module use java.io.File directly?
Answer: No.
Question (resources-layer): Does your module provide own layer? Does it create any files or folders in it? What it is trying to communicate by that and with which components?
Answer: No.
Question (resources-read): Does your module read any resources from layers? For what purpose?
Answer: It uses contents of some well-known layer folders:
• org.openide.awt.MenuBar is built upon data found in folder Menu
• org.openide.awt.ToolbarPool is built upon data found in folder Toolbars
Also, Utilities.translate uses mapping collected across all module ClassLoaders in the text file located in META-INF/netbeans/translate.names, see Utilities.translate() docs
Question (resources-mask): Does your module mask/hide/override any resources provided by other modules in their layers?
Answer: No.

Lookup of components

Question (lookup-lookup): Does your module use org.openide.util.Lookup or any similar technology to find any components to communicate with? Which ones?
Answer:
• org.openide.awt.Actions looks up org.openide.actions.ActionManager.
• HtmlBrowser looks up HtmlBrowser.Factory and HtmlBrowser.URLDisplayer.
• StatusDisplayer looks up its own default implementation using Lookup.
• HttpServer uses Lookup for HttpServer.Impl registration.
• SharedClassObject subclasses singletons are searched for using Lookup.
• CallbackSystemAction searches TopComponent.Registry using Lookup.
• org.openide.xml.EntityCatalog delegates its methods to all instances of EntityCatalog found in Lookup.
• ErrorManager delegates to all its instances found in Lookup.
• Nearly all resource looking functions and reflective code uses ClassLoader obtained from Lookup for loading ide-wide resources.
Question (lookup-register): Do you register anything into lookup for other code to find?
Answer: No.
Question (lookup-remove): Do you remove entries of other modules from lookup?
Answer: No.

Execution Environment

Question (exec-property): Is execution of your code influenced by any environment or Java system (System.getProperty) property?
Answer: Yes. netbeans.screen.insets - Influences results of Utilities.getUsableScreenBounds netbeans.taskbar.height - Influences results of Utilities.getUsableScreenBounds org.openide.util.SharedClassObject.initialize - For purposes of SystemOption the SharedClassObject handles getProperty ("org.openide.util.SharedClassObject.initialize") in a special way, by returning null if initialization is not running and Boolean.TRUE if it is.
Question (exec-component): Is execution of your code influenced by any (string) property of any of your components?
Answer: Yes.
Question (exec-ant-tasks): Do you define or register any ant tasks that other can use?
WARNING: Question with id="exec-ant-tasks" has not been answered!
Question (exec-classloader): Does your code create its own class loader(s)?
Answer: No.
Question (exec-reflection): Does your code use Java Reflection to execute other code?
Answer: Yes. Because of the API separation, org.openide.awt.Actions uses reflection when looking for org.openide.actions.ActionManager implementation. Also, where is the optional JRE1.4 dependency, reflection is mostly used to access that functionality.
Question (exec-privateaccess): Are you aware of any other parts of the system calling some of your methods by reflection?
Answer: No.
Question (exec-process): Do you execute an external process from your module? How do you ensure that the result is the same on different platforms? Do you parse output? Do you depend on result code?
WARNING: Question with id="exec-process" has not been answered!
Question (exec-introspection): Does your module use any kind of runtime type information (instanceof, work with java.lang.Class, etc.)?
WARNING: Question with id="exec-introspection" has not been answered!
Question (exec-threading): What threading models, if any, does your module adhere to?
WARNING: Question with id="exec-threading" has not been answered!
Question (security-policy): Does your functionality require modifications to the standard policy file?
WARNING: Question with id="security-policy" has not been answered!
Question (security-grant): Does your code grant additional rights to some other code?
WARNING: Question with id="security-grant" has not been answered!

Format of files and protocols

Question (format-types): Which protocols and file formats (if any) does your module read or write on disk, or transmit or receive over the network? Do you generate an ant build script? Can it be edited and modified?
Answer: org.openide.awt.MenuBar and org.openide.awt.ToolbarPool implementation consume anything that have InstanceCookie of proper type.
Question (format-dnd): Which protocols (if any) does your code understand during Drag & Drop?
Answer: No special implementation.
Question (format-clipboard): Which data flavors (if any) does your code read from or insert to the clipboard (by access to clipboard on means calling methods on java.awt.datatransfer.Transferable?
Answer: No special implementation.

Performance and Scalability

Question (perf-startup): Does your module run any code on startup?
Answer: Not itself.
Question (perf-exit): Does your module run any code on exit?
Answer: No.
Question (perf-scale): Which external criteria influence the performance of your program (size of file in editor, number of files in menu, in source directory, etc.) and how well your code scales?
Answer: N/A.
Question (perf-limit): Are there any hard-coded or practical limits in the number or size of elements your code can handle?
Answer: There is a natural limit in the number of top level menus. Also, the classes that delegate their functionality to all found instances (ErrorManager) or first-hit (EntityCatalog) are theoretical performance bottlenecks.
Question (perf-mem): How much memory does your component consume? Estimate with a relation to the number of windows, etc.
Answer: Hard to estimate. Depends on the usage patterns and input data.
Question (perf-wakeup): Does any piece of your code wake up periodically and do something even when the system is otherwise idle (no user interaction)?
Answer: No.
Question (perf-progress): Does your module execute any long-running tasks?
Answer: No.
Question (perf-huge_dialogs): Does your module contain any dialogs or wizards with a large number of GUI controls such as combo boxes, lists, trees, or text areas?
Answer: No.
Question (perf-menus): Does your module use dynamically updated context menus, or context-sensitive actions with complicated and slow enablement logic?
Answer: No.
Question (perf-spi): How the performance of the plugged in code will be enforced?
WARNING: Question with id="perf-spi" has not been answered!